


I love you (despite the warning signs)

by Kangoo



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Undeath, Everybody dies but they're happy in the end and that's all that matters, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Snippets, Wow rare pair week, ask for a rare pair get a RARE pair, non-chronological storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-25 13:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14978489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: His head is killing him, his mouth tastes like something died in there, and he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes because he didn’t have the time to drag himself out of the ditch he passed out in to go home and change before the start of his shift.Seven day of Falwyn, because if someone needs to write about obscure characters being in love it might as well be me





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> you: write about a rarepair!  
> me, a goblin: *spins my mental wheel of obscure character and chooses two at random by throwing a dart*  
> (I love them ok)
> 
> title from Troubled Birds

"Falric! Just the man I was looking for!"

Falric swears under his breath. Bless his heart, but Arthas has a gift for dropping by exactly when he doesn’t want to talk to people, let alone his best friend. Guards he can get away with growling or barking at, because guard captains are allowed to act like rabid dogs when hangover sometimes. The crown prince, on the other hand, is entitled to some amount of respect, which Falric does not currently feels like giving him. His head is killing him, his mouth tastes like something died in there, and he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes because he didn’t have the time to drag himself out of the ditch he passed out in to go home and change before the start of his shift.

He briefly considers pretending he hasn’t heard him, but finally decides against, because Arthas is his best friend and also his direct superior in the line of command and he likes his job. He keeps the helmet on, though. It hides his woke-up-still-drunk look and the cold metal is a blessing to his headache.

"Well, here I am, being looked at," he says, turning around. Arthas strides to him and claps his hand on his shoulder, hard enough to make him sway slightly. His grin is brighter than the sun, which is easy considering it’s barely up—just high enough above the horizon to make him squint and curse his ancestors, actually. This is worrying. No one’s cheerful like that in the morning, not even Arthas. He likes his beauty sleep. "Did you want something, or are you just here to be a nuisance?"

 _We said_ respect, _Falric, you alcoholic bastard_ , he mentally berates himself. Arthas just chuckles.

"Actually, there’s someone I wanted you to meet!"

Arthas drags another man forward, making the stranger stumbles at the unexpected movement. He quickly straightens up, giving Falric another blinding—albeit smaller, more unsure—smile. He’s armored, but he stands too straight, the way new guards do. There’s so much unbidden enthusiasm poorly hidden under his anxious expression, it’s like a sucker punch to the guts. The guy can’t be much younger than him, he looks about Arthas’ age, but in front of him Falric feels like he’s half a century older than him, like his bones are already bending under the weight of his armor.

This is the face of a man optimistic about his future. The face of someone naive, some goody-two-shoes in it for the _heroism_ of it all. Someone who’s never fought in a war. He remembers seeing the same expression in the mirror on his first day as a guard, before—everything. Fuck, where did _his_ enthusiasm go?

"This is Marwyn Feywood, one of our newest recruits. He’s a friend."

"You have those?" He turns to Feywood. "Don’t listen to him. He’s just using you as a way to get out of his princely duties."

Arthas rolls his eyes. "Har har, hilarious. Stop undermining me in front of my subordinates."

Falric shoulders his scabbard, not bothering to tie it around his waist, and levels Arthas with a flat look. "You do it to me often enough. Anyway—good to meet you, Feywood. M’sure you’ll do great things for the crown—"

His rehearsed, welcome-to-the-shitshow speech is cut my Arthas who says, "Actually, I want you to train him."

"… Beg your pardon."

Feywood clear his throat nervously before speaking up. "I, huh. I know I’m new and all that but— it would be an honor to work under you!"

Dear god did that ever come out wrong. Falric swallows, hard, counts to ten and then backward in his head, and tries to think pure thoughts. He settles on thinking about murdering Arthas with his bare hands instead.

"Oh _hell_ no." He points an accusing finger at Arthas. "You know _exactly_ what you’ve done, you royal asshole." Guess that’s it for respect then. To be honest he didn’t expect himself to make it so far without insulting his friend—apart from Feywood they’re alone anyway, and it’s not like he will go snitch to the king. "You can’t just drop this poor sod at my feet and expect me to mentor him—"

"Why not? I know you’re a great mentor, I’ve seen it."

Falric opens his mouth in outrage, close it and gestures silently but vehemently toward Marwyn, hopping it conveys the right sense of ‘how do you expect me to resist _that_ ’.

"Marwyn, would you mind giving us a minute?"

The young soldier seem to deflate but obediently walks away.

Arthas’ two hands fall on both of his shoulders, efficiently pinning him in place. He looks him in the eyes, as serious as ever.

 _Oh no_ , Falric thinks. This is the lecture look. The I-worry-about-you look. The must-you-drink-so-much look. The do-you-want-to-talk-about-it look. Falric _loathes_ that look.

"Fal—"

"If I accept are you going to stop giving me this lecture every time you see me?"

The abrupt interruption leaves Arthas quiet for a moment. Then his faces adopts a considering expression, which quickly morphs into a worryingly smug one. "Sure," he finally says.

"Fuck it, I’m doing it."

Arthas smiles gently and knock their shoulders together. “He’ll be good for you, I think.”

He takes his helmet off and strides toward Feywood, ignoring Arthas’ knowing smirk. "C’mon kid, training time! Let’s see what you’re made of!"

"Y-Yes, sir!"

(If only he’d known. _Naive_? _Goody-two-shoes_? Ha! How wrong he was. How incredibly, _delightfully_ wrong.)


	2. After battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all have after battle-rituals. Falric's is to clean.

There are, Marwyn believes, some advantages to fighting something that is already mostly dead. Not many, mind you: they smell as foul as they look, they’re a pain in the side to kill for good and there apparently is an endless supply of them, but at least they don’t scream in pain when you stab them with a sword. They don’t _die_ , really, they just—stop not-dying.

He hasn’t fought against living opponents often, but each occurrence has been burned into his mind to better come to haunt him in early, sleepless mornings. The abominations bleed black pus everywhere, but at least they don’t beg for their life when you’re about to put an end to their misery.

It’s still disgusting, though. Living people might get blood and viscera everywhere, but at least theirs aren’t half rotten already: that comes later.

(He used to think the day after a battle smelt like hell, but undead battlefields don’t even wait for the next day before they start stinking to the high heavens.)

Marwyn isn’t _opposed_ to being covered in body fluids of questionable freshness and origins. He’s had worse at some point, probably. Falric, on the other, will _not_ stand for it.

"Don’t you _dare_ come in like that," the other captain warns, waving the tip of his sword at him. He’s sitting cross-legged on his cot, scabbard across his lap and whet stone balance precariously atop his knee. That’s his post-battle ritual: first he cleans himself, then he cleans his sword, and then— "Let me grab your stuff."

Marwyn grins bashfully from his spot just beyond the flap of their tent. He can feel coagulated blood sticking his hair together and to his forehead, and there’s something unspeakable but slimy caught in the back of his armor. He can’t even smell himself, which means he either ended up getting used to it or the frost burned his sense of smell away, so it’s _bad_.

Grumbling under his breath, Falric shoulders his furred cloak on and walks around the tent, gathering a bar of soap, a comb and some discarded towels in his arms. They’re as clean as anything will ever get in this place, which is to say sufficiently for now but they’ll probably need to be burned afterward. Zombie gut is hell to get out of clothes.

He steps back to let Falric pass and follows him across the camp, toward the makeshift baths they’ve put up. Magic fires are lit under great basins of water to heat them, and whichever soldier is assigned to that particular chore at the moment is tasked with throwing clean-ish snow in them whenever someone empties them in one of the wooden tubs. Bathing among every other soldier isn’t what he’d call being in the lap of luxury, but after a day of trudging through rotting flesh it’s the best thing he could ask for.

Marwyn strips down while Falric goes to find water. His armor clangs against the ground—he’ll have to remember to clean it before it gets the chance to dry—and his clothes soon follow, making a wet sound when they fall. _Ugh._ Disgusting. He nudges them aside with a grimace and stands there, naked and shivering, as he waits for Falric to comes back. The tent in which they’ve put the baths might be the warmest here, but there’s an icy wind coming through the gaps in the fabric.

"Get in there," he tells his friend once he’s emptied it in the tub.

"Yessir!"

Sinking into the hot water might be the closest thing to a religious experience he’s ever had. He dips his head underwater before he resurfaces. Falric kneels next to him and gently starts to wash him, gently rubbing the soap against his skin and scrubbing the grime off, something clicking his tongue as his fingers brush against a fresh injury. Marwyn closes his eyes and focus on the feeling of Falric’s hands on his skin. It’s an intimate, comforting ritual, almost worth the ordeal of going through a battle against the force of evil beforehand.

Falric leans close and says, voice low, "I’m going to get some more water."

"’Kay," he replies around a yawn. He lets out a deep sigh as he leans back, muscles already relaxing. Heat floods him, curling into his chest, and steam rises around him. He has no idea how much time passes: it could be an eternity or none at all before Falric is back at his side.

The other man chuckles. "Comfortable?" He hums in agreement, and Falric nods. "Alright. Tilt your head back."

He does. Soon, calloused fingers work their way into his hair, gently combing through the knots. Foam runs down his neck and face but a hand wipes it off his forehead before it can get into his eyes. He smiles, eyes closed, lulled to sleep by Falric’s skillful hands.

"I love you," he mumbles. The hands in his hair stills before they go back to their task. He blinks his eyes open and blearily looks up at Falric, surprised by the reaction. "Fal’?"

His friend smiles down at him, softer than he usually sees him. "I know. I love you too, ‘wyn."

"Aw, you do care!"

Falric huffs and, rather than face the fact that he does, actually, have the ability to express genuine feelings, he dumps a bucket of hot water on the other’s head to wash away the soap. Marwyn splutters in outrage. There’s soapy water in his mouth, _ew._

"Get out, dumbass, let’s get you dressed before you catch your death."

"Aw, can’t I enjoy the hot water a bit?"

"With those wounds? Not until I’ve disinfected them, no."

Marwyn grumbles good-naturally and drags himself out of the bath. He lets Falric dries him but not without rolling his eyes at the gesture, and the other man leans against his back and presses a grin against his neck. There’s a giddy feeling spreading behind his ribs—is this the first time they’ve said it? It’s weird, after all these years, that they never did, but nothing about their relationship has ever been done in the right order, after all.

He draws the line at being dressed by someone else. Falric dumps his change of clothes in his arms and, while he puts them on, he goes to empty the tub into the snow outside. Then, they make their way back to their tent, nudging each other as they walk, unwilling to keep apart for too long. The snow can’t even pierce through the layer of warmth from the bath, but more importantly from the arm Falric has thrown over his shoulder to keep his close, their sides pressed together.

He only lets go of him to push him on his cot—they don’t have the mean to have beds big enough for two, so this is what they’ve been working with for the past few weeks—and go looking for their first aid kit. He’s back in seconds, putting himself between Marwyn’s legs.

"Are you really going to fix me, or are you going to _fix me_?" He asks, waggling his eyebrows.

Falric doesn’t break eye contact as he puts thread through a needle and passes it through a candle’s flame to sterilize it. He doesn’t bother rising to the bait: the _don’t be stupid_ goes unsaid, but not unheard.

He sighs but suffers through the sting of an alcohol-soaked rag rubbing against his open wounds and doesn’t even flinch when Falric starts sewing them shut. He concentrates on the way his muscles shift under his skin instead, the quiet concentration in his eyes, the hair falling in front of his eyes. His skin is warm against Marwyn’s when he reaches around him to bandage his injuries. Everything is warm, removed from the frost of Northrend.

Marwyn smiles and lifts his hand to rest them on either side of Falric’s face. "All good?"

Falric sighs, rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide the grin threatening to take over his face. He leans into the touch until their foreheads are touching. "All good," he agrees.

Cleaning is Falric’s post-battle ritual. Now, Marwyn’s… is a little different.

"Here’s to hoping Arthas won’t drop by uninvited this time, hm?"

"Don’t jinx it," Marwyn warns, and kisses him before he can say anything that might curse their evening.


	3. Betrayal/Defeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has to believe they’re fine. The prince is going insane, Falric has disappeared, Luc is still recovering from his wounds and Muradin is dead, everything is falling apart but he _has_ to believe. If he doesn’t hold it together, who will?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense. I had finals to pass so I couldn't keep to the schedule.

Arthas has been gone for three days, Falric for two—it’s as if the frozen wasteland of Northrend has swallowed them whole, leaving behind no trace of either of them. The last time Marwyn saw the prince, he was shivering like an addict already craving for the next high, his damned whispering blade in hand and Mal'Ganis’ blood all over his armor. Muradin’s death left him unbalanced. Light knows what could have happened to him, lost in the wild in that state. And Falric—

He has to believe they’re fine. The prince is going insane, Falric has disappeared, Luc is still recovering from his wounds and Muradin is dead, everything is falling apart but he _has_ to believe. If he doesn’t hold it together, who will?

"Thassarian—" He sighs and his shoulder drops. He’s tired, exhausted down to the bones, worn thin by stress and the slow decent into madness of his best friend. But he shakes the fog out of his head and continues, stubborn as ever, "Bring them back, alright?"

The knight nods, face grim but resolute. "Yes sir!"

He salutes then departs, striding through the snow with a courage Marwyn remembers feeling, once. Not anymore, though. Not in a long time.

He hates this: feeling like he’s useless, powerless, delegating a duty that is rightfully his. It should be him, going out there to find two closest friends, but he can’t leave their army without a leader. Sending Thassarian in his stead is a desperate attempt to resolve a desperate situation: he’s a final attempt at a rescue mission before Marwyn gives the order to turn back. It’s time they start looking for a way to go home…

He walks back to his tent with heavy footsteps and a heavier heart. Three days—he’ll give it three days before he gives the order.

* * *

 

On the evening of the third day, there is still no news from either of the knights sent after Arthas, or even Arthas himself for that matter. Marwyn leans over their desk and stares blindly at the organized chaos Falric left behind. Of the three of them, he’s the youngest. Why is he the one left behind to take the hard decisions, the one who has to stand up for their weary soldiers and drag them home?

There’s a scuffle outside the tent, armored feet scrapping against the rocks. The command tents are a little off the side of the camp, so it’s unlikely to be the usual comings and goings of the troops. Marwyn hesitates—he can’t face any of his subordinates right now, not when he’s planning to abandon his closest friends for their sake. But the tent flap falls back down with a rustle, and there is no other sound save for the howling of the wind outside and the sound of armor settling as the soldier stands still.

He pushes himself away from the table and turns on his heels, and what he sees freezes him on the spot.

It’s not any of their men who stands there. It’s Falric, unreadable in the low light but easy to recognize by his familiar silhouette and Marwyn foolish, hopeful heart calling to his, beating hard in his chest. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make any move toward Marwyn, and that alone should have worried him. But Marwyn is a lovesick fool at heart and he takes a single, stumbling step forward, raises his hand as if to touch him, before he notices something is amiss.

The flickering light of the lantern casts deep shadows on his face, throwing the edges of his sunken cheeks in sharp contrast. It almost looks like his skin is paler, the red of the biting wind replaced by the blueish tint of frostbite, reflected in the unnatural hue of his eyes. They glow dimly, sickly, as he stares unblinkingly at Marwyn. This is not the Falric he remembers running off after Arthas. This is a dead man walking, black magic woven around crumbling bones, a creature like any horror they’ve fought before, this is not the man he loves and the world is falling apart again—

A cold, _cold_ hand settles on his cheek. Falric looks at him with his dead blue eyes and his thumb brushes lightly against his eyelid, coming away wet with the tears gathering here.

"Oh, darling, don’t cry." Even his voice sounds different, hoarse and distorted by an echo from beyond the grave. He doesn’t even sound like himself anymore as he leans forward, breath like a winter wind against Marwyn’s skin as he shushes him.

Marwyn covers his mouth with his hand to stop a sob from escaping. Tears spill from his eyes and he can’t look away from the dead eyes that look both like a stranger’s and a lover’s, staring down at him. Falric sighs, his all-too-familiar ‘ _why must you be so difficult_ ’ sigh, and wraps icy fingers around his wrist. Marwyn lets him push his hand down, doesn’t bother resisting or reacting, not even when Falric presses his lips against his own in a parody of a kiss. It’s light and soft, and he’d almost let himself fall for it if it didn’t feel like the northern wind had taken the opportunity to replace all the air in his lungs.

"Don’t fight it, love," he whispers against his mouth, apparent affection at odd with his calculating look. He looks fond but irritated like a parent scolding a difficult child, whatever love he does still feel tainted by the necromantic magic stirring in his veins. "It’s all going to be over soon."

A sob rips itself from Marwyn’s throat. His knees give out from under him and he collapses against Falric, weeping uncontrollably against his chest. Why fight it? Falric is dead, Arthas sure to have suffered the same fate, and soon he will be, too. What’s the point in fighting a losing battle?

_What’s the point?_

"We will be together," the discordant voice promises against his ear. "We will bring the world to its knees for our Lord— _side by side_." Falric shifts against him, free hand reaching behind them—for the sheath of Marwyn’s sword, propped against his desk. "I love you. I will _always_ love you. _Forever_."

Never have those words sounded like a worse fate than now. It’s not a promise anymore, it’s a _threat._ What escape is there from their fate, after all, when death has already failed them?

"I love you," Marwyn repeats dutifully, voice dull and smothered in Falric’s chestplate.The blade screeches as it is drawn. Falric pushes against his shoulder to break them apart and presses the tip of the sword above his heart. "Forever."

Falric smiles—a sharp, dark thing, a cracked-mirror reflection of his usual affection—and plunges the sword into his heart to the hilt, and Marwyn knows no more.

When he wakes up, the world will burn.


	4. Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthas has been dead for a long time, but the Lich King died yesterday. Perfect time for a celebration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sure, I _could_ have made this a happy, drunk celebration of victory. But why when I could have angst instead?
> 
> A short one because it's late, next one should be longer!

It takes some time for the dust to settle. The fall of the Lich King doesn’t solve everything: his rampage has left deep scars on the world than cannot be mended by revenge alone. There is also the issue of Death Knights’ allegiance to deal with. Their part in the Scourge’s atrocities is hotly debated, but even those who believe in their innocence hesitate to welcome back into the fold. Even if they did, it’s unlikely the Death Knights themselves would jump at the opportunity. They have spent so many years together, fighting against a common enemy— _being_ the common enemy—that they now have more in common with each others than with individuals of their own race and faction. Old rivalries born from forgotten wars and prejudices are nothing, compared to the ordeal of dying and serving the Lich King in his bloody rampage.

So it takes some work. They dig more graves than they can count and light pyres for those they can’t bury. Some Death Knights return to their old home, others make a new one on the Acherus, and people stop screaming at their sight. Blood dries. The dust, eventually, does settle.

And as soon as it does, Falric and Marwyn sneak out of the Acherus and go find a tavern where they can get as drunk as their undead bodies will allow them. Which, turns out, is _very_ —as long as they consume enough hard liquor to kill an alcoholic dwarf.

The moon is high in the sky, the lanterns low on oil, the tavern mostly empty: all that’s left are a few unconscious drunkards and the two of them, slumped against each other and staring at their full tankards. Empty bottles litter the table, adding to the mess of spilled beer and the old stains one comes to expect in seedy taverns such as this one.

Not many good, upstanding establishments will serve Death Knights. Their kind have too much of a reputation to be in any danger from the local thugs, so they learned to lower their standards.

The atmosphere is too somber for a celebration, but it fits them better. Most Death Knights are drinking to their newfound freedom, others toasting to the end of a war, but how could they? They might have won their independence but they’ve lost a dear friend in the process, and it hurts just like losing any other brother-in-arm.

But they didn’t lose him at the top of Ice Crown. They lost him years ago to a cursed blade—earlier, even, to the whispers of madness hidden under righteousness. Whenever it was, they lost themselves as well, and they’re drinking to that, too.

This isn’t a celebration. It’s a wake—a funeral service for a man thrice-dead, once in spirit and twice in body.

Still, they are free. They might as well drink to that, too.

"To Arthas," Falric says, raising his tankard in a toast. "May that bastard rests in peace once and for all."

"And to us," Marwyn adds. "With a little chance, we might catch a nap now."

They drain their drinks and slam them back on the table near-simultaneously. Falric gestures to the innkeeper for more. This is a vigil; they’re going to be there for a while.

He deserves that much, at least.


	5. Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first mission together doesn’t go as planned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late, I'm going through some stuff and writing is hard ;w; here's some angst though! next prompt will be a direct continuation of this one.

The duty of a city guard doesn’t stop at the well-lit places of the wealthier districts. Those are where the newbies patrol; most of the real work, done by the more experiences guards, takes place in less than reputable parts of town.

Lowtown is as un-reputable as it can get. It’s the poorest district of the city, built by down-on-their-luck outsiders who came to the city in hope of wealth, overrun by the worst the city has to offer, opportunists with loose morals and criminal gangs. It’s dark, dirty, loosely held together by dirt and trash.

Marwyn knows every single of its unlit, twisted streets by heart. He wasn’t born here, but not far from it either—close enough to have had to drag his father out of its cheapest taverns on more than one occasion when he was a teen. He still has friends here, people who jokes about his shiny armor while he carefully doesn’t look too closely at their current occupation, their newly-acquired coins that still have dried flakes of blood tarnishing the grimy silver, indistinguishable from the old copper. None of them have ever held a gold coin between their fingers and neither had he, before.

It feels like coming back home, but he’s never felt more like a stranger than walking those familiar streets in his shiny guard armor.

Falric pulled some strings to get him there. He’s still, technically, a trainee, no matter how skilled with a blade or how close to the crown prince and his right-hand man. But the two of them have hardly ever been apart since Arthas threw him at Falric and told them to get along, and Marwyn’s intimate knowledge of the city’s underbelly proved to be a winning argument on the guard captain who attributes their schedules.

All the guards around him are veteran, used to Lowtown in a way that is both similar and completely different from his own. They have walked these streets before too, but never as anything else than a guard. They are not streets to them: they’re _patrol routes_. It gives them a radically different outlook on things, make them blind to some details that are glaringly obvious to him and hyper-vigilant to others he wouldn’t spare a glance for. Marwyn hopes they can all learn something from each other—if only the older guards can get that stick out of their ass long enough to listen to him.

Guess he’s a bit spoiled. Falric is a harsh but fair guy, and he inspires so much respect that it never feels like he’s ordering him around, so he lost the habit of blindly following orders from senior officers.

He’s tired of their muttered insults toward the beggars they pass, tired of their judgmental looks toward him and the low whispers that make Falric’s shoulders tense. He noticed a kid trailing after them—unusual, as children are taught early to avoid patrols—so, with a silent encouragement from his direct and favorite officer in the form of a discrete nod he deliberately slowed down his pace. Soon the squad is a good ten feet from them, and he pretends to observe a ‘wanted’ poster nailed to a nearby wall. Whoever hired the artist who made that portrait got scammed: it might be a human or a gnoll, but either way it’s so poorly drawn the person they’re looking for is completely unrecognizable.

The child slows down as well and then stops, unsure, a few feet from him, half hidden in the shadows. From the corner of his eyes Marwyn sees him whip his head between the main group and the lone guard, hesitating.

"You looking for something, kid?" The kid jumps with a squeak. He tries to step back and only manages to stumble on his own feet. That is the clumsiest pickpocket he’s seen in his life. He turns around, raising his empty hands in a placating gesture. "I just want to know why you were following us. I swear I’ll leave you alone after that."

The kid glares at him with all the might of a scared kitten, stubbornly silent. Then he cracks—Marwyn wasn’t mistaken to think he was following them to tell them something. He looks downright eager to talk, once he gets beyond his bloody-mindedness.

"I just, huh—I overheard a talk? I have nothin’ to do with it, swear! Was jus’ eavesdropping, I’m not a criminal—"

"Hey. Calm down. Breathe."

The kid inhales shakily and continues, all in one breath, "I heard that Big Pete was planning to do something to the patrol tonight!"

Marwyn pauses. "What?"

"Yeah, he was talking about sendin’ a message or somethin’, an’ you guys are really helping the people like my ma’ and I so I thought I could help—"

It’s Marwyn’s time to rush. He throws a careless ‘thanks kid’ above his shoulder as he runs the way his squad has gone, but they don’t appear to have noticed his disappearance and continued right on their patrol route—

Right into a trap, apparently.

He’s panting when he reaches them, skin hot under his plate armor. He grabs Falric’s arm and gasps out, "We’re walking into a trap!"

"What are you talking about?" Gilbert barks. He’s the oldest officer—but, to his eternal and bitter resentment, not the highest ranking—of the squad, and probably Marwyn’s auto-proclaimed worst enemy. He hates ‘young upstart’ like him, because he’s a mean old man who’s too stupid to rise above his current rank.

"I talked to a street kid—"

He laughs harshly. "And you believed him? Fool!"

Falric lifts one hand and Gilbert immediately closes his mouth with a _click_. They’ve stopped in the middle of a side street, lit by the single lantern he holds in his hand. "Let him speak. What do you mean, a trap?"

The voice that answers isn’t Marwyn’s. "Well, isn’t it self-explanatory?"

Falric turns on his heels and the light of the lantern reveals a group of armed men stepping out of the deep shadows. Their leader smiles, sharp and cruel. He’s missing a few tooth. Carran swears; a glance above his shoulder tells Marwyn they’re surrounded.

"You’ve been walking all over our territory, _crown dogs_." He sneers. "Time to put you back into your place, _under the ground_."

It should sound stupid but with the darkness spreading around them sends a shiver of icy dread down Marwyn’s spine.

The other guards all focus on the weapons being drawn on them, their rusted and chipped but still deadly sharp edge, the snarling faces of those wielding them. Cutlasses and knives and stolen swords, pipes turned into improvises weapons, a hammer. The street is narrow, impossible to fight in: it would be a bloodshed.

Marwyn notices something else: he notices sparks twisting around one’s fingers, the arcane-blue light of his eyes.

A mage.

He has a second to scream, "Falric!" before fire sets the street alight, and then he has a fraction of a second left to react.

He jumps forward. It’s awkward: there is just enough space for him to drag Falric back by his chest plate, to throw himself in his place and twist around to offer his back to their enemies instead. Just enough time, too.

Then the fireball hits, heat coursing right through his armor and biting into his flesh until it swallows him whole.

The last thing he hears is his name, said in a piercing yell that cuts through the haze of pain before it steals his breath and consciousness away in a sweep of darkness.


End file.
